103 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



with woods of birch and hazel, and dotted with little 

 black cottages, while a line of large beeches and a snug 

 little village occupy the foreground. 



' A little beyond Con tin, the road enters a birch wood, 

 and forms the only object in view which reminds one of 

 man. It is but a few years since it has been made ; I 

 even saw in a little recess in the wood the ruins of two 

 of the unwheeled carts (sledges rather) which were in use 

 among the Highlanders here prior to its formation. We 

 were met at the place by a company of men from Loch- 

 broom, with then- grey plaids, as the day was extremely 

 warm, rolled up in a knapsack form on their shoulders, 

 three of the party had folded up their breeches in the 

 same bundle. They were all travelling towards Ferin- 

 tosh to the sacrament. A little farther on the appearance 

 of the country is extremely pleasant. On our right there 

 rose a ridge of abrupt rocky hills, from the hanging cliffs 

 of which the hazel and mountain ash shot out their 

 gnarled and twisted trunks almost horizontally over the 

 road; on our left a small but beautiful loch filled the 

 bottom of the glen. After driving a few miles farther 

 we were presented with quite a different scene, a bleak 

 extended moor, through which a few sluggish streams 

 rather oozed than flowed, with here and there a dwarf 

 oak or birch, the upper branches decayed and bleached 

 white with the storms of winter. We saw at one place 

 some very large and very old oak trees one of them 

 standing, the others fallen. The one which stands is 

 about six feet in diameter, and is so entirely divested of 

 its upper branches that it resembles a green spire, and 

 so hollow at bottom that it reminded me of a large tar- 

 barrel. A still bulkier tree lies doddered and leafless 

 beside it, and not many yards away there is an immense 

 heap of sawn timber, originally of an inferior quality, 



